Movie Review: Blackfish (15)

Blackfish exposes showtime marine centres for what they are...concrete compounds for the captive far removed from the oceans where wild orcas are perfectly harmless to humans despite their ‘killer’ tag.

Cinemagoers had to queue round the block when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws finally opened here in late 1975 after six months on release in the US.

You might have to be equally patient to see this stunning film which puts ‘killer whales’ into wildlife and humanitarian perspective while giving you all of the dangerous action sequences you could possible want.

It is being released in London this weekend yet in the meantime most parts of the country are simply getting The Wolverine in huge, multi-format doses with Frances Ha quietly in the background.

Blackfish exposes showtime marine centres for what they are...concrete compounds for the captive far removed from the oceans where wild orcas are perfectly harmless to humans despite their ‘killer’ tag.

Footage of the orcas shows them literally crying and scientific research of their brains reveals they are far more social creatures than we are.

The mother of six-year-old twin sons, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite reveals how the first performing orcas were cruelly captured.

And she follows the story of Tilikum, a larger than average 12,000lb beast, which has killed three members of staff.

While ex-trainers accuse their former employers of lying and insulting the dead, they all surely understood the risks they were taking.

The footage of trainers being propelled out of the water is simply stunning for the daredevil dynamics involved, while the hold-your-breath scenes where one trainer refuses to panic despite being repeatedly dragged to the bottom by his foot is the most extraordinary example of crisis management you will ever see.

All this after the opening audio feed will make you gulp just as much as the brilliant trailer on You Tube.

Caller: ‘We need a response for a dead person at SeaWorld. A whale has eaten one of our trainers’.

Responder: ‘A whale ate one of the trainers?’

Caller: ‘That’s correct’.

Free Willy, it ain’t.

It is only showing at 3.30pm in Screen 2 of The Electric Cinema, Station Street on Saturday / Sunday August 10/11. Why not ask the MAC or Warwick Arts Centre to think about screening it tool